Thursday, June 16, 2016

"Google is courting India by bringing Bollywood one click closer"

Thank goodness.
No longer will innocents stumble across things like this (trigger warning!deeply disturbing!)

From Quartz:

India loves Bollywood and Google definitely knows it.

The US-headquartered search giant announced today
a few improvements to its search algorithms, in order to cater to its
Indian users. Google will now offer direct answers to Bollywood-related
searches—about actors, movies, and even showtimes—instead of just
producing a list of links.

One in 10 Google searches on smartphones in India are about cinema, Google said in a press release.

“As a tribute to our users and their passion, we
are today showcasing the rich search experience on Google for everything
cinema, focusing on more structured answers, visual elements, user
experience that is suited to mobile,” Google India explained in a
statement to Quartz.

Google will use its Knowledge Graph system
to enhance search about Bollywood. Launched in the US in 2012,
Knowledge Graph provides actual answers to searches, instead of just
related links. The idea is that users can use information provided by
Google to resolve their query, without navigating to other websites.

Bollywood dominates search trends in India, with
several actors regularly featured on Google’s annual list of
most-searched people in the country. For at least three years,
Canadian-Indian actor Sunny Leone has been the most-searched person on
Google in India. Even in 2014—the election year when prime minister
Narendra Modi was the talk of the town—Leone was the most-searched person.

In fact, eight out of the 10 most searched people in India in 2015 were related to Bollywood:...MORE